dent pride. He had never had a
sister since babyhood and he enjoyed it. The happiness of the
engagement was terribly broken into by the sudden death of Gertrude
in a street accident. Frances was absolutely shattered. The next
group of letters belongs to the months after Gertrude's death, when
Gilbert was still trying to be a publisher, but, urged on by Frances,
beginning also to be a writer. During part of this time she had gone
abroad for rest and recovery after the shock. Gilbert pictures her
reading his letters "under the shadow of an alien cathedral."

None of these letters are dated but most of them have kept their
postmarks.

11, Paternoster Buildings
(postmarked July 8, 1899)

. . . I am black but comely at this moment: because the cyclostyle
has blacked me. Fear not. I shall wash myself. But I think it my duty
to render an accurate account of my physical appearance every time I
write: and shall be glad of any advice and assistance. . . . I have
been reading Lewis Carroll's remains, mostly Logic, and have much
pleasure in enlivening you with the following hilarious query: "Can a
Hypothetical, whose protasis is false, be legitimate? Are two
Hypotheticals of the forms, _If A, then B_, and _If A then not B_
compatible?" I should think a Hypothetical could be, if it tried
hard. . . .

To return to the Cyclostyle. I like the Cyclostyle ink; it is so
inky. I do not think there is anyone who takes quite such a fierce
pleasure in things being themselves as I do. The startling wetness of
water excites and intoxicates me: the fieriness of fire, the
steeliness of steel, the unutterable muddiness of mud. It is just the
same with people. When we call a man "manly" or a woman "womanly" we
touch the deepest philosophy.

I will not ask you to forgive this rambling levity. I, for one have
sworn, I do not hesitate to say it, by the sword of God that has
struck us, and before the beautiful face of the dead, that the first
joke that occurred to me I would make, the first nonsense poem I
thought of I would write, that I would begin again at once with a
heavy heart at times, as to other duties, to the duty of being
perfectly silly, perfectly extravagant, perfectly trivial, and as far
as possible, amusing. I have sworn that Gertrude should not feel,
wherever she is, that the comedy has gone out of our theatre. This, I
am well aware, will be mi